University of Washington Receives $50 Million Endowment Gift

Comprising $40 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen and augmented by $10 million from the company in Allen's honor, the gift will enable the university to elevate its Computer Science & Engineering Department, which has been planning to double the number of degrees it awards each year. The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering will build on the department's leading-edge research in emerging areas such as mobile health, neural engineering, artificial intelligence, next-generation data storage, and data science and allow it to pursue new opportunities designed to accelerate scientific discovery and real-world impact.

"There's probably no institution that has had a greater influence on me than the University of Washington," said Allen. "I spent hour after hour in the university library devouring everything I could on the latest advances in computer science. And it was access to UW computers as a high school student that served as a springboard for the eventual launch of Microsoft....We are entering a new golden age of innovation in computer science, and UW students and faculty will be at its leading edge. My hope is that the school will have the same influence on them as it did on me — that they will continue to dream big, breaking through technological barriers and using their skills to solve some of the biggest problems our world faces."